Sony Ericsson W800i review

The W800i will play both MP3 and AAC files (although we found no mention of AAC as a supported file format in the documentation). Either format can be copied to the Memory Stick Pro Duo by connecting PC and phone and treating the Memory Stick as a drive, or by using a card reader.

Alternatively, Sony Ericsson's Disc2Phone software can be used, but not for AAC files. It converts WAVs to MP3 and reduces the bit-rate (you can tweak this to your taste). It then squirts the resulting MP3s on to the Memory Stick. Disc2Phone can also rip CDs and uses the CDDB online services to retrieve title, artist and other information automatically.

Manual copying of MP3s was more convenient, but sometimes resulted in incomplete listings where tracks were identified but artists and albums were not. When we used an iTunes-style filing system (a folder for the artist, containing a folder for each album, containing the individual tracks), the W800i was able to sort the tracks by artist and album.

Sound quality through the W800i's speaker is only passable. It's better through the provided stereo headset -- the in-ear buds cut out most external noise -- but it's not perfect. We improved it using a high-quality headset of our own. The phone has a proprietary connector, but you can plug standard headphones into the 3.5mm socket in the microphone, halfway up the cable.

As well as operating as an MP3 player, the W800 has a built-in FM radio -- although it won't function until you plug in the headset. Once you've done this, select Auto Save to fill the 20 preset slots. You can then flick through the channels by pushing the joystick up and down, and thanks to the RDS feature, you can see what stations you have tuned into. Changing presets manually is no problem. One of the softkeys is married to a Search function allowing you to find alternative stations and save them.

If you want games, there are two on hand -- a sliding puzzle affair that uses your own pics and a rather nice musically themed Tetris clone.

Performance
The W800i might seem at first like a great handset, and indeed its camera and radio, like those of the K750i, are lovely. Battery life was impressive, voice call quality is good and general handling is comfortable.

But music playing is the raison d'etre of the W800i, and here there are good and bad points. Plenty of memory and good on-board controls are marred by limited file format support, the need to use special software for transfer and less-than-lovely sound quality.

Overall, while it has some very good features, the W800i should inevitably be judged by its ability as a music handset, and in this respect it's fair but not a must-have, especially with handsets containing hard drives -- such as the Nokia N91 -- just around the corner.

Edited by Mary Lojkine
Additional editing by Nick Hide